our food safety, whether we're worried about our borders being secure, whether we're worried about fbi being supported, it's all affected by sequestration. >> joining me now, cnbc washington reporter eamon javers. you heard the numbers we just ran down. what is the short-term tangible consequence if we don't get action on the fiscal cliff. >> cote is right, it does cause uncertainly. life is uncertain and so they know that there's going to be this issue and that washington is going to wrestle with it. in the short term, the very short term, i think actually some of the hype around the fiscal cliff is a little overblown, particularly because the first couple of days or week or so after we go over the fiscal cliff we won't see all that many impacts. all these tax and spending impacts take months to go into effect. it doesn't impact the economy until people start paying taxes, which could be several months down the line for most americans. on the spending side as well, spending is built into the cake so again you'd be looking at stuff that would be impacting the out months. for the first